


This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

by Tierfal



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Cameos, Coffee Shops, Crack, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Humor, M/M, Nerdiness, Pop Culture, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-06
Updated: 2012-10-06
Packaged: 2017-11-15 18:39:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/530439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The lives of several scholarship students at the multiverse-renowned Crossover University converge, resulting in mass chaos and a great deal of caffeine consumption.</p>
<p>[Sorta-semi-kinda-not-really spoilers through SPN S5.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

**Author's Note:**

> ♥ to Eltea for being kind enough to beta-read and HTML-alize for me after handing me this bunny and following its ungodly growth in disjointed updates for several weeks. XD
> 
> Items of interest are as follows:
> 
> 1\. THIS IS MADNESS.  That's kind of the point. :D  Please proceed accordingly. ♥
> 
> 2\. Café Olé is fictional.  In-N-Out Burger is not.  Unsurprisingly, my brain located Crossover University in Northern California, although I'm anticipating that everyone will picture their own alma mater, which I think is awesome. ^^
> 
> 3\. Welcome to THE CAMEO GAME!  You play by identifying as many cameos as you can!  Leave me a comment here (anon is fully-enabled, like Roy's caffeine addiction) mentioning that you're going to play, and then PM me [on LJ](http://tierfal.livejournal.com/profile) or message me [on Tumblr](http://tierfal.tumblr.com/ask) to tell me which ones you've found.  If you would be so kind, number them and quote or paraphrase each description so that I can keep track of your score.  _Note:_ I'm defining a cameo as a visit by or a specific mention of an individual.  Since Lord of the Rings, for instance, is a _part_ of the universe, someone talking about Bilbo as a _character_ doesn't count.  The same goes for Al's cat's name, etc.  _Note the Second:_ There are a grand total of 30 cameos from all kinds of media… plus one that's ~*~special~*~,  and by "special" I mean kind of cheating. Just have fun! ♥
> 
> 4\. This was written for FMA Don't-Forget Day/the début of SPN season 8! \o/ Enjoy! ♥

Al tucks the lockpicks back into his pocket and sorts through the files in the drawer, which is a bit of a challenge with gloves on.  When he reaches the staff files, he nips the wrinkle of fabric at the end of one finger and draws off the glove on his right hand; with his thumb free, he starts entering the dates into his iPhone calendar.  He’s not as fast—or, to be fair, as woefully, hilariously inaccurate—a texter as Brother, and he’ll probably be cutting it a little close to when the dean’s secretary comes in at eight, but the cold sweat will be worth it.

At 7:42, he slips back out the window, drops down into the bushes, clambers to his feet, puts the gloves in his backpack, picks the leaves out of his hair, and starts towards the café to go grab a cup of coffee before his 8AM physics class.  It’s such a nice morning!

 

 

It’s really not Sam’s fault.  It’s just that somebody left a slightly morbid world mythologies book on the reshelving cart by the legal journals, and he picked it up, and he sat down on the arm of one of the fauteuils to skim a little bit, and…

And holy _shit_ , it’s 8:54, and he has Tort across campus at nine—

There isn’t time to check it out; he pelts out of the library and sends up a brief prayer of gratitude for his long legs.  Maybe the stupid book’ll work its evil magic on someone else.

 

 

Eight minutes after ten, Roy is still sitting at his desk glaring at the line of careful penmanship reminding him that one Edward Elric was due at the hour.  Admittedly, he shouldn’t have been surprised when all of his begging and campaigning for an office unshared with other TAs resulted in a claustrophobic closet of a room on the seventh floor, accessible by a single staircase which can only be found upon entering from one of the courtyard doors…

But it’s still Edward’s fault that he’s late; Roy warned him about the stairs.  He should have allotted time to find the room—Roy’s life doesn’t revolve around _undergrads_.  It revolves around… well, coffee, to sustain him through the reading and the lab hours and the other classes and the fellowship applications.  He has a hundred-thousand more important things to do than loiter around here waiting for a stupid sophomore who can’t even be bothered to worry about his section grade.

Also, he’s hungry.

At fifteen minutes past, the little fucker finally wanders in, looks around, snorts, and drops down into the folding chair across from Roy.  The bizarre black backpack covered in skull insignias crumples on the floor.

“Well,” Edward says.  “Tell me about how I’m going to fail or whatever.”

“At this rate,” Roy says, “you are.”

“Spice it up,” Edward says.  He puts his feet up on the edge of Roy’s desk—his tacky Hot Topic boots are _covered_ in mud—and retrieves an apple from his sweatshirt pocket.  He picks a few pieces of fluff off and then takes a bite.  “G’ff me some met’fforf.”

“You are going to go down in flames like the Hindenburg, but with more fanfare and fewer mourners,” Roy says.

Edward grins.  “Nice.”  He takes another bite and then holds the apple out towards Roy.  “H’ngw?”

“No,” Roy says, which is of course a lie, but he’ll gladly die of starvation before he shares fruit with an assholish, entitled undergrad.  “You’re going to fail this class.  Don’t you even _care_?”

“I won’t,” Edward says.  “I worked in Prof Curtis’s lab all summer; we’re tight.  She won’t let you fail me out.”

“She won’t have to,” Roy says.  “She’s going to _kill_ you when I tell her about this.  Honestly, I don’t understand it—you show up to every section, and you seem to have a perfect—” Enviable, really; easy; natural.  “—comprehension of the material, but you haven’t turned in a single homework assignment, an—”

Edward swallows another bite, blinking.  “We were supposed to turn those in?”

It’s a good thing this room is windowless, or Roy would hurl himself out and gratefully fall to his death.  “Where in the hell have you been?  That’s the entire _point_ of homework.  That’s the _purpose_ of i—”

“Maybe in high school,” Edward says.  “But this is college.  Isn’t the homework supposed to be just for me, to make sure I know what we’re doing and stuff?  Like little progress checks.  Nobody told me I had to turn it _in_ ; what do I care what _you_ think of my equations?”

Roy stares and just keeps staring.  “That’s… how… it works.  That’s the system.”

“The system sucks,” Edward says.  “Hang on, I might…” He sets the remains of the apple on the desk and goes excavating in the black backpack; chains jingle.  “I have last week’s, and the one from two weeks ago.”  He produces two crumpled sheets of graph paper like a show magician and looks terribly pleased with himself.  “The rest are back at the apartment.  I could bring ’em tomorrow.  Or hey, have you had breakfast?  You could come over.”

Roy stares a little more.  Edward stares back.

Then he grins like a cat.  “ _If you know what I mean_ ,” he says.

If Roy doesn’t get free food out of this ordeal, several emails and a great deal of alphabetizing will have been wasted, so he stands.  “Lead the way, then.”

 

 

Al holds out the plastic bag proudly despite the rather large Walgreens logo on the side.

“This is for you,” he says.

The janitor looks at him extremely dubiously, which is kind of sad, and takes the bag as though he expects it to be full of Bagheera’s litter, which is even sadder.  He glances in, sees that it’s a wide assortment of candy bars instead, and sets an incredulous gaze on Al.

“Back up, bucko,” he says.  “My parents told me not to take candy from strangers.”

“Alphonse Elric,” Al says.  “You can call me Al, or ‘smarty-pants’, or ‘is that your natural hair color’.  Now we’re not strangers.”

The janitor continues to eye him.  “All right, riddle me this—how did you know it was my birthday?”

“Lucky guess,” Al says.

“The only kind of stalkers I’ll accept are nubile sorority girls who think they can work out their daddy issues by doing the dirty with an older man,” the janitor says.

“I’m waiting for marriage,” Al says.  “Or for someone really, really hot.”

“Well,” the janitor says, “over-sharing is as good a way as any to make friends.  Gabe.”

Al says “Nice to meet you” instead of _I know_.

 

 

“Dean,” Cas is saying as Sam lets himself in.  “I don’t understand.  There is no milkshake—or any other milk-based dessert product—anywhere on her person.  How can it then be a sexual innuendo?  And to what ‘yard’ is she referring?”

“The milkshake is figurative,” Dean says.

“But—”

“God damn it, Cas, I didn’t write the song!”

“No.  I think they hired a five-year-old to do that.  Although perhaps then it would be ‘My cool triceratops toy brings all the boys to my playhouse.’”

“Cas.”

“Actually, the logic would hold together much better if that were the case.  Do most boys even like milkshakes?  I like strawberry ones.”

“Cas.”

“In any case, I doubt her milkshake is better than mine.  I have a number of testimonials to indicate that I make an excellent milkshake.  Would you like a milkshake, Dean?”

“If it’ll get you away from YouTube, then _yeah_ , I would.”

“Ah.  Then my literal milkshake has brought one boy to my figurative yard?”

“Cas, stop.  Just… stop.”

Sam knocks on Dean’s door and clears his throat loudly.  “Would you make me a vanilla one, Cas?”

Dean snickers.  “You are pretty vanilla, Sammy.”

“Shut _up_.  Cas, don’t let him distract you from your homework, okay?”

“I won’t,” Cas says.

“Thanks, _Mom_ ,” Dean says.

“You’ll thank me when your boyfriend can get a job,” Sam says.

Dean makes a noise that might be a wheeze and might be a half-stifled scream; it’s hard to tell with the door in the way.  “He’s not my—”

“But Dean,” Cas says.  “You told me that—”

“I take it back!”

“But you paid for my delicious pizza—”

“Only because you had no cash!”

“And your rendition of ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’ was highly suggesti—”

“You have to sing it that way!”

“And you’re holding my ha—”

“ _I am not_!”

“Losers,” Sam says.  “I’ll be in my room if you ever actually get around to milkshakes.”

“Figurative milkshakes,” Cas says, “or litera—”

“ _No_ ,” Dean says.

Sam rolls his eyes and heads down the hall.  He drops his backpack in the doorway and then drags it across the carpet towards his desk, because the thing is seriously like an anvil in an old cartoon.  Apparently law books that bear an uncanny resemblance to bricks of lead are karma’s way of getting back at scummy lawyers.

Sam crosses back to the door and kicks it shut, and then he drops into his desk chair like a sack of worn-out, brain-dead potatoes.

…that probably describes pretty much all sacks of potatoes.  Which probably demonstrates the point.

As always, he has a metric crap-ton (or an imperial crap-ton; this is why he didn’t go into math) of reading to do, so he opens his laptop, boots up iChat, changes his status to _drowning in homework; please throw flotation devices_ , leaves the computer on the desk, and gets to work giving himself eyestrain.

 

 

When Al gets home, Bagheera is perched on the end of the couch that’s closer to the door, and her tail is swishing back and forth.

That’s not enough evidence for conviction by itself, so Al goes over to look at the dishes in the sink.  There are two bowls and two spoons and two glasses which were not there this morning, but it’s possible that Ed just got hungry for instant ramen twice—it wouldn’t be the first time.

Al follows the trail of crumpled articles of Ed’s clothing towards the bathroom.  He can hear the water running, but other than that the whole apartment is silent like a lecture hall after a particularly difficult example question.

All of the assorted items of clothing are indeed Ed’s, and he has a tendency to mistake the floor for a magic carpet-colored washing machine, but then…

Al picks up the keyring and jingles it.  The keychain is a little tag, encased in plastic, which read _LIVE FAST, DIE YOUNG_ before someone with a Sharpie amended _LIVE_ to _READ_ and _DIE_ to _RUIN YOUR EYES_.

“Brother,” Al says loudly, “you don’t have a car.”  He examines the keys.  “You definitely don’t have a Ford Mustang.”

The water shuts off, and Ed’s wet head pokes out through the bathroom door.  His face has gone the approximate shade of a firetruck at sunset.  “Uh.  Hey, Al.”  He glances back.  “You drive a _Mustang_?  Come _on_ —conceited much?”

“Lay off,” a rather deep, very smooth voice says.  “If there was a car called an Elric, you would drive one, and you know it.”

“How can you even afford a Mustang?” Ed asks.  “You can’t afford _food_.”

“When I was ten, I bet my mother a car that I would amount to something someday.  Acceptance to graduate school counted.  And it’s a ’99; it’s not like she broke the bank.”

“Okay,” Ed says, “that’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.  Uh, Al, this is… Roy.”

Another wet head appears through the gap in the door.  A wet hand joins it.  “Ah… good afternoon.”

“Pleasure,” Al says.  “Are you Roy-as-in-Roy-the-chem-TA?”

Roy-as-in-definitely-the-chem-TA flushes to match Ed.  “I am.”

“I wondered,” Al says.  “Well, don’t let Ed take any pictures; he wouldn’t be above blackmailing you to pass.”

“I would _so_!”

“Oh,” Al says.  “Ed, for next time, would you mind introducing whoever it is to the cat?  I think she gets scared of strangers.  And it wouldn’t kill you to _feed_ her once in a while.”

“It might,” Ed says.  “Those cat food cans are a fucking _menace_.”

“Uh huh,” Al says.  “In any case, nice to meet you, Roy.  I’ll be in my room telling the cat that she’s loved if you need anything.”

Roy waves again, slightly helplessly.  “Nice… to meet you…”

“I forgot where we were,” Ed says, turning towards him as Al starts back for the kitchen.

“I didn’t,” Roy says.

Al scoops up Bagheera, zips into his room, and closes the door securely.

 

 

The artist formerly known as a number of things, currently known as Gabe, is amusing himself by changing all of the engravings on the wall plaques he’s polishing.  When someone glances at them, they will appear to read “I LOVE JUSTIN BIEBER”; examined straight-on, they’ll go back to their regular appearance.  A guy can only whistle “Baby” and inhale PineSol fumes for so long before he’s gotta entertain himself.

It’s late enough that the poli-sci building is mostly empty, but when he’s only halfway down the hall—and considering making a few of the plaques say “LEGALIZE POLYGAMY SO I CAN MARRY ALL OF THE JONAS BROTHERS AT ONCE”—two students come down the stairs, talking loudly.

“You can’t just stand her up,” the gangly one in the bandanna says.  Nice Queen’s English accent; pity about the ears.

Fratty McJockface shrugs.  “I only agreed in the first place to be polite.  She’s not my type.”

“She’s a model!”  Gangly goggles a bit, adjusting the lacrosse bag slung over his shoulder.  “That’s been your type since we were twelve!”

“I have a new type,” Fratty says.

“How can you possibly have a _new type_?  Did you get hit in the head today whilst I was scoring _all_ of our team’s points?”

“You only scored because I let you,” Fratty says as they move past Gabe.  “Don’t get the wrong idea and start thinking you’re not utter and complete _crap_ or something.”

Gabe considers turning the floor to butter only underneath those unreasonably expensive sneakers.  Or he could make Fratty’s overpriced jeans split down the back.  Or he could endow the lucky young man with the month-long Epic Bad Hair Day Trial Package.

But then Gabe remembers that he has a King Size Kit-Kat in his pocket, melting merrily as proof that un-sucky undergraduates actually _do_ exist.  Just this once, he decides to let Fratty slide figuratively, rather than literally and on his pampered ass.

His karmic reward comes in the form of Gangly doing a _beautiful_ double-take when he glances at the plaques.

“You’re not going to believe this,” he says to Fratty.  “I could’ve sworn on my life that said ‘I WOULD SELL MY LIVER ON THE BLACK MARKET FOR AN ORGY WITH ONE DIRECTION’.”

“There is nothing sadder,” Fratty says, “than an illiterate English major.”

But with the way Fratty’s looking at Gangly, it’s suddenly clear what he meant by a _new type_.  And Gabe is secretly kind of glad he didn’t humiliate the dumb, arrogant lunk.

 

 

As tends to happen once Sam zeroes in on a block of text, he’s deeply engrossed in the process of sifting through the words for well over an hour.  Only when there’s a knock on the door does he surface—although “surface” isn’t really the right way to put it; it feels more like falling.

“Yeah?” he calls.

“Sam,” Cas says.  “I made you a milkshake.  I could serve it in the yard if you prefe—”

“Son of a _bitch_ , Cas; we talked about this.”

“I’m sorry, Dean.  I’m just trying to utilize my new, up-to-date vocabulary.”

“That shitty song came out in 2003.”

“…I fail to see your point.”

Sam gets up and hurries over to throw the door open, grab his milkshake, say his “Thank you”, and shut it again.

“That was nine years ago, Cas.”

“…I still fail to see your point.”

“Do you know how freakin’ much pop culture has changed in a freakin’ _decade_?”

“…is this a very roundabout way of telling me that I should not wear your AC/DC T-shirt in public?”

“No!  That’s totally different.”

“Why?”

“It just is!  There’s outdated and lame, and then there’s retro, which is awesome.”

“Define ‘retro’.  I was only aware of ‘retro’ as a prefix indicating a reversal of effects from a specified point in ti—”

Sam plugs his headphones into his computer and pumps the volume.  On the upside, Cas’s milkshake _is_ kind of amazing.  Definitely worth a visit to a figurative yard.

His iChat icon is bouncing like Dean upon reaping the fruits of the day-after-Easter candy sales.  Damn, he didn’t even notice.

He pulls up the window.  His ‘Hobbit’-trailer-scouring-forum ally turned insomnia buddy has written, _Hi, there!_

Sam sucks down a little more milkshake, presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth at the ensuing brainfreeze, and types, _Hey!  Sorry, was slaving away, getting headache from legalese, etc etc and didn’t see your message…_

Momentarily, a bubble pops up with the reply: _No worries! ^__^  How are things?_

Sam tries not to grin at his computer screen.  What kind of nerd… anyway.

_Better now that I have an *EPIC MILKSHAKE* courtesy of my brother’s of-course-he’s-not-a-boyfriend-shut-up-Sammy._

_Hee… I know about those.  Well, actually, I don’t.  I know about okay-so-maybe-he’s-my-TA-but-have-you-noticed-how-good-he-looks-wet, though.  That was my afternoon. xD_

Sam stares for a second, and then he approximates his own expression as best he can: _O_____o_

_lol_ Al writes.  _Nothing my brother could do would be as bad as the time I walked into the first-floor bathroom in Stark Hall after class, and there were these two guys getting it on up against the wall.  For a minute I was just like “Well, that’s unsanitary”, and then I realized that the black-haired guy with the glasses had been my lab partner in the seventh grade.  And THEN the blond guy said “Good afternoon, stranger!  My, you’ve got a lovely complexion, and such nice hair!  Any chance we can convince you to join in?”, and I… totally ran for it. xD_

Once Sam is done choking on milkshake, he puts his hands to the keys.  _Holy CRAP!_   He pauses, and then he types a little more.  _You have a Stark at your school, too? :)  That Stark guy and his wallet mustve gotten around, haha._

_Maybe?_ Al writes.  _Is it too weird to ask what school you go to?_

Sam doesn’t hesitate—even if Al is a fifty-year-old creeper dude with role-playing skills honed by decades of dark-basement D&D, the school’s big enough that he’ll never track down one kid named Sam.  _Crossover.  You?_

_Oh, my,_ Al writes.  _What a small world. xD_

_Whoaaaaaaaaa,_ Sam types.  _You gotta be kidding me.  For real?_

_100% for real, legitimate, and genuine. ^____^;_

_That’s crazy,_ Sam says.  _I always figured we were just like in the same time zone or something.  Do you wanna grab coffee and talk shit sometime?_

_That depends,_ Al writes.  _Do I have to grab the coffee with my bare hands? xD_

_Smartass :P,_ Sam says.

_Thank you! ♥_

_Do you know Café Olé?_ Sam types.  _They’re kind of weird and quirky and a little bit hipster but mostly cool._

Al’s response isn’t long in coming: _I’ve walked past, but I’ve never been in – I’ve got class until two tomorrow; would you like to shoot for 2:30? :3_

_I’ll be there,_ Sam writes.

 

 

“We _discussed_ this,” Hughes says.  “And what did we decide?”

“‘Undergrads are off-limits,’” Roy recites dully.  “But—”

“‘No ifs, ands, or buts,’” Hughes finishes primly, wagging his finger.  “‘Definitely no young butts.’”

“I made an exception,” Roy says.

“‘No exceptions, ever!’”

“ _He_ came on to _me_ ,” Roy says.

“I can’t believe you’re three years into a Ph.D and still don’t understand the word ‘no’,” Hughes says.  “You’re going to end up like the guy in the philosophy department who got arrested for stalking that freshman doing photography—you remember how we discussed him as a _negative_ example?”

“I’m not _stalking_ Edward,” Roy says.  “It’s closer to the other way around, if anything; he’s… aggressive.”

Hughes sighs feelingly.  “You’re already whipped, aren’t you?”

“ _What_?  No!”

“Like _cream_ ,” Hughes says.  “I’m going to start calling you RoydyWip.”

“You are dead to me,” Roy says.

“Excuse me,” a woman a bit older than them says, edging up to the counter.  “Is my half-caf skinny white mocha almost finished?”

“My _dear_ woman,” Hughes says, ramping the charm up to eleven without batting an eyelash, “much as I strive for the life-giving grace of your approval, even with my most valiant efforts, I cannot rush art.”

The woman shoots Roy a skeptical look; heaven forbid he should have the audacity to drink plain black coffee and loiter by the counter catching up with his oldest, most multitask-capable friend.

“Have you told your sister?” Hughes asks.

“It happened yesterday,” Roy says.  “And I intend to procrastinate on that as long as possible; she’s going to disown me.”

“She can’t disown you,” Hughes says.  “She never really owned you in the first place if you were adopted.”

“Okay,” Roy says.  “She’s going to run me through with a chef’s cleaver and then shoot me in the kneecaps several times while I bleed out all over the pavement.”

“That sounds more like Riza,” Hughes says.

“I didn’t _mean_ to,” Roy says.  “It’s just that there was free food at stake, and then he kept doing this— _thing_ —with his tongue, and then he said, ‘Oh, will you look at the time, I’d better take a shower,’ and started taking his clothes off in the middle of the living room, and then he said ‘Will you help me wash my hair?’, and…” Roy sets the coffee down in order to scrub his face with both hands.  “And I’m going to hell.  Or getting kicked out of the program, which is worse.”

“Cheer up,” Hughes says.  “I just made the _perfect_ half-caf skinny white mocha for the _perfect_ customer.”

The woman blushes, and not because Hughes just subtly called her out for eavesdropping on them so obviously.

“Would you like a medal?” Roy asks as Hughes pushes the cup across the counter and winks.

“Yes,” Hughes says.  “And a certificate, and a trophy, and a music box with a dancing barista instead of a ballerina.”

Roy starts to turn to refill his mug and then swivels back at twice the speed, trying to shield his face.  “Hide me!  _That’s his brother_!”

Hughes laughs delightedly.  “Too late!  He saw you.  He’s coming over.  Aww, he’s cute.  Maybe he’ll tell you not to phunk with anybody’s heart.”

“Fuck you for getting that song stuck in my head _on top of everything e_ —good afternoon, Alphonse.”

“That’s an adorable name,” Hughes says.  “Do people call you Phonsie?”

“Not usually,” Alphonse says mildly, gaze dipping to Hughes’s nametag.  “Do people call you Maesie?”

Hughes cackles.  “Oh, I _like_ this one.”

“Good afternoon, Roy,” Alphonse says.  “I’m meeting a friend.  I’m not sure if he’s here yet.”

“What does he look like?” Hughes asks, scanning the scattered tables.

“Tired, I imagine,” Al says.  “Beyond that, I’m not sure.”

Roy looks around.  In a college-town coffee shop, ‘tired’ doesn’t narrow it down much.

“Why don’t you order something complicated and expensive,” Hughes says, “and then count out a big tip, and by the time you’re done, maybe he’ll have arrived?”

Alphonse shifts the messenger bag hanging against his hip and tugs an iPhone out of his pocket.  He thumbs in a couple things and frowns.  “I suppose he could just be running late.”

The bell on the door jingles merrily, and an undergraduate the size of a full-grown elk steps in.  By the way he glances around, Roy would bet… well, at least one of the two dollars in his wallet that this is the guy.

“Sam?” Alphonse asks when the young man’s sightline reaches them.

“Hey!” the guy says.  “Um… hey.”

“It’s nice to meet you in person,” Alphonse says.  He blinks upward.  “You’re significantly taller than I expected.  I like your hair.”

“Uh, thanks,” Sam says.  “I… like yours… too… I guess.”

Alphonse looks at Hughes, who is staring at them in absolute rapture.  “Are you planning to watch all of this?”

“Yes,” Hughes says.

“Order something,” Roy says.  “Sometimes his mouth doesn’t move quite as much when his hands are busy.”

“Ah,” Alphonse says.  He moves over to the register, folds his hands, and sets them on the counter, blinking expectantly until Hughes sidles over and grins.  “May I please have a cup of darjeeling tea?”

“You certainly may,” Hughes says, tapping the buttons with characteristic flair.  “Are you guys paying together?”

“Yeah,” Sam says, rummaging in the pocket of his endless jeans.  “I’ll get it, Al.  Um—can I—call you Al?”

“You can call me ‘cupcake’ if you like,” Alphonse says mildly.  “I think our relationship is ready for that.  Did you want anything?  Drinking alone is a sign of addiction.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, retrieving a wallet from the void.  “Can I get a decaf chai latte?”

Hughes shoots Roy a warning look, but it’s too late.

“ _Decaf_?” Roy asks.

He’s about to launch into the tirade complete with limb-flailing and howling to the heavens, because _decaf_ is an insult to his very _existence_ as a being whose blood is over eighty percent pure caffeine.  Ordering _decaf_ is _racist_.

But then he notices that Alphonse is watching him, face blank and composed but eyes laser-focused.  Roy would bet the remaining ounce of non-caffeinated blood in his body that he is currently being assessed for suitability as Edward’s “sort-of-kind-of-boyfriend-thing” (Ed’s terminology, and phrased as a question; Roy would have said “fuckbuddy seeking upgrade”).

Roy swallows hard.  “The… chai is quite good.”

Sam stares at him.  “Okay.  Cool.  Thanks, dude.”  He turns to Hughes.  “How much do I owe you?”

Roy wishes he could offer to pay as a gesture of gentlemanliness, but this month’s budget has space for a tank of gas and… that’s about it.  Given the choice between sucking up to his quasi-boyfriend’s brother and having a mode of transportation, pragmatism obliges him to pick the latter.

Hughes is already giving change anyway, and Sam drops it all into the tip jar.

“I hope you don’t think that’s going to get me to leave you alone,” Hughes says.

“I wasn’t born yesterday,” Sam says.  “I know that for a fact because I have a vague memory of dragging myself through last year’s finals.”

Hughes grins and slings a teabag into a cup, looking to Al.  “Hot water’s in the canister behind your brother’s stalker.”

“ _Hughes_!” Roy says.

Alphonse approaches calmly and pats Roy’s arm as he scuttles out of the way.  “You’re very cute when you blush.  Just in case you weren’t aware, however, Brother is a third-degree black belt in jiu-jitsu and frequently carries a knife.”  He fills his cup and then adds three sugars and a swirl of half-and-half.  “Sam, tell me about your brother.”

“He’s a third-degree black belt in bar-fighting,” Sam says.  “He named his switchblade ‘Snookums’.  He and your brother might get along.”

Alphonse smiles as he stirs.  “Or they might murder each other.  I imagine I’ll see you later, Roy.”

“I hope so,” Roy says, not entirely sure whether he means that sincerely or not.  “Ah… enjoy…”

 

 

When Dean opens the door, Cas has his computer’s power cord wrapped around him like some kind of weird tech-support-themed bondage porn.

…not that Dean would know anything about that.

“Dean!” Cas says, eyes so bright they’re almost hard to look at.

“You really don’t have to say my name every single time you talk to me,” Dean says.  “Once every three sentences would be way more than enough.”

“Oh,” Cas says.  “Well—Dean!  I found a new song I like!  It has a lovely accompanying piece of musical videography, too; I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.”

Dean sighs inwardly and clears space on the kitchen table for the laptop Cas is clutching to his chest.  “Okay, show me.”

Momentarily, Dean’s worst fears are realized.

“Son of a bitch, Cas,” he says.  “Do you have _any idea_ how long it’s going to take to get that shit out of my head again?”

Cas’s gaze is glued to the screen.  “I want to learn the dance.  Can you teach me the dance, Dean?”

“I will _stab myself in the throat_ before I teach you the Soulja Boy dance, Cas.”

“That would be extremely painful,” Cas says without blinking.  “I suppose perhaps I can learn it on my own.”

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” Dean says.

“Would you dump me, Dean?”

“I can’t dump you.  We’re not—together.”

Cas stares at him instead of at the computer, and the intensity of his attention is startling.  “That’s illogical, Dean.”

…that was not one of the eight thousand arguments Dean was anticipating.  “Wait, what?”

“It’s illogical,” Cas says.  “Why would you tolerate my numerous eccentricities if you were not expecting to tap my fine milkshake?”

Oh, Jesus fuck.

“You know what?” Dean asks.  “ _Fine_.  Fuckin’ _fine_ , Cas.  If it’s _logical_ for us to be a thing, then we’re a thing, and that’s freakin’ that.  Are you happy now?”

Cas blinks.  Nothing else about his face changes.  “I am delighted, Dean.”

Sweet pecan pie à la mode.  Everybody should mark this on their goddamn calendars as the day Dean Winchester lost his mind and fucking _smiled_ about it.

 

 

Crap.  Al is about eight times more golden-retriever-puppy-adorable than Sam ever imagined.  Considering the extensive use of _^_____^_ emoticons, he’d been prepared for someone cute, but—but _this_ is something else entirely.

Al stirs his tea, sips demurely, and looks around.

“What do you think?” Sam asks.

Al’s survey of the shop settles on the window table where two girls are sitting.  The cherry-haired girl’s wearing a short skirt with one red-and-yellow-striped thigh-high sock and one shorter black one; the girl whose pink sundress perfectly matches her hair is nodding wide-eyed as the redhead rants animatedly.

“I see what you meant about the hipsters,” Al says.  He looks at the shelf with all the creepy kachinas and then at the sandpainting of Coyote.  “I really like the Southwestern theme, though.”

“I heard they have a secret menu thing where they’ll put chili powder in any drink if you ask for it Santa Fe style,” Sam says.

Al smiles.  Oh, _God_ , this is unfair.  “More like Satan style.”

Sam tries not to let his face fall, but—

“Still with the hallucinations?” Al asks.  “Did you get to sleep last night?”

“Eventually,” Sam says.  He elects not to mention that a lot of it was the irrational but unshakable anxiety that Al would turn out to be a serial killer who reveled in the thrill of an extremely leisurely chase via IM.

Al smiles ruefully.  “Have you gotten a chance to try the blackout thing yet?”

“Not really,” Sam says.  “I don’t think I was thorough enough.  I tried the other kind of blackout.”

Al looks alarmed.  “Don’t… make a habit of resorting to NyQuil.  Just trust me.”

_I’ve trusted you since you posted that amazing psychological analysis of Bilbo in the books and pointed out manifestations of larger emotional contexts in the trailer._   “It sucked anyway.  I passed out, yeah—and then I stayed passed out until fifteen minutes before class, at which point I ran there in my pajamas.”

Al winces sympathetically.  “Yeah, I… woke up at noon and then spent the remainder of the day staggering around like a drunk.  My brother thought it was hilarious; he kept telling me to stop hitting the bottle on a weeknight.  Anyway, you do have to get pretty serious about it—the hardest part for me was covering up the numbers on my alarm clock, because I kept panicking about the time, but when I got used to it… it actually really helped not to be able to see time passing as I was trying to get to sleep.”

All right, Sam is dumb.  Sam is as dumb as a particularly unintelligent rock.  But he can’t stop being Dean-during-a-carb-coma dumb, so he might as well run with it.

“This is kind of a lot to ask,” he says, “but do you think maybe you’d be willing to stop by my place sometime and help me pimp it insomniac-style?”

The way Al’s face lights up when he smiles makes Sam’s stomach twist into Gordian knots.

When Sam gets back, Dean’s door is closed, and everything is unsettlingly quiet.  He creeps into his room, shuts the door, and enacts his last resort.

“Uncle Bobby,” he says when the phone line catches, “I need help.”

“Sam, I’ve told you a hundred times—the only thing I know about the law is that it’s legal for me to pull a shotgun on trespassers.”

“It’s something else,” Sam says.

“Okay, fine, hit me with it.”

“I…” God, this is impossible. “Um…”

“If the problem is you’ve got a frog in your throat, get off the damn phone and get to the damn hospital.”

Sam forces it out on an exhale.  “I think I’m in love with a guy I met online.”

The silence is heavy.

“So,” Bobby says.  “You know how you and your idjit brother have elected me from a pool of qualified candidates to be your counselor and adviser and yadda yadda whatnot?”

“Yeah,” Sam says slowly.

“Well, I am tendering my goddamn resignation.”

“But Bobby—”

“Make sure he’s not some kinda freak and then plant one on him or something!  Why the hell should I know how to handle all that crap?”

Sam kind of wishes he could see his own face, because it’s probably pretty funny.  “Um—well—promise me you won’t tell Dean.”

Bobby snorts.

Then he hangs up.

Son of a _bitch_.

 

 

Al likes his history professor a lot—he’d have to, to cram another class into his schedule; this one he doesn’t regret.  The professor is rather precipitously going gray, but he’s still got a spring in his step, and his face is aging gracefully.  Sometimes he looks so exhausted that Al absorbs it and has to run for another cup of coffee after class, but usually his blue eyes are bright and engaging.  Al prefers to sit in the front row of the fairly modest lecture hall to get the full effect of his charisma.

Today, he’s sitting right next to the reader with the short pink hair and the dozen earrings, who has an amazing knack for mixing bright colors and goth motifs without looking like a colorblind maniac.  Ed should probably take lessons from her.

Since it’s a bit difficult not to pay attention to someone so… _dramatic_ , Al’s observed over the last few weeks that Pretty Pink-Haired Reader Girl (PPHRG for… sort-of-short) is usually calm and cheerful.  Today, though, she looks more than a little agitated—she’s tapping her pen against the shapeless scribbles at the top of her notepad, and she’s glaring daggers at the so-far unoccupied lecture stage.

“I’m sorry,” Al says, “but is there something wrong?”

“Bastard thinks he can play the ‘university regulations’ card on me,” she mutters, shooting Al a conspiratorial glance.  “Let’s see how that works out for him when I show up in a trenchcoat and my knickers.”

Al feels his face getting very warm.  “Oh.  Well.  Good luck with that.”

“Appreciate it,” PPHRG says, much more brightly.

Al thinks that maybe— _maybe_ —that’s the end of the insanity for this school-day, but when he gets to his chem lab, his partner is gazing moodily at their supervisor.

“Today’s my favorite!” the redhead who corrals them declares.  “Today we set shit on fire!”

“We’re all going to die,” Al’s lab partner says.  “We’re all going to be erased from the planet in a torrent of flame, and I haven’t even fucked him.”

“You could try asking him out,” Al says.

“No point.  We’re all going to die.”

Al repositions his chair closer to the fire extinguisher.  “In the unlikely event that we don’t die, then,” he says, “you have to ask him out in celebration.”

“Fine,” Majoring-in-Gloom-and-Doom says morosely.  “I’ll take him to the archaeology museum, and we can look at dinosaur bones and mummies, and then he’ll know what a nerd I am and start screening my calls.”

“You were a lot more fun before you fell in love,” Al says.  “You either need to take a Xanax or get laid, and I’m voting for the latter.  Come on, he’s cool, but not in a too-cool-for-nerdy-guys way.  I mean, he’s getting a Ph.D in _chemistry_ ; how cool can he be?”

“Fucking arctic.  Fucking absolute zero.  Fucking negative a million _Kelvin_.”

The (but really, not _that_ cool) man in question saunters over and slaps his hands down on their table, grinning, green eyes alight.  “What’s wrong with you guys?  Less chitchat, more pyromania!”

“He wants to go out with you,” Al says, gesturing across the table.  “How’s five-thirty tomorrow night, meeting in front of Henry Jones Hall?  Wear a tight shirt and let your hair down.  You might have to pay for the pizza; he’s here on a scholarship.”  He looks away from their supervisor’s saucer-sized eyes to assess where Gloomy-Doomy’s cheeks fall on a scale from apple to stop sign.  “Do I get extra credit for the fact that my partner’s face is on fire?”

Their supervisor swallows hard.  “Uh.  Yeah.  You do.  Actually, you both get A-pluses for today.”

Is _everybody_ Al knows hot for teacher?

Well.  Obviously Al’s hot for… extremely tall pre-law student with mop hair and doe eyes.  But he seems to be the exception.

 

 

“Do _not_ give me the bitchface,” Dean says in his most warning-y of warning voices.

“This isn’t the bitchface,” Sam says, which is _crap_ , okay.

“I’ve been on the receiving end of your bitchfaces since you were three,” Dean says.  “ _That_ is the _bitchface_.  Bitch.”

“Jerk,” Sam says automatically.  “And it’s not—this is the ‘You met Cas on the bus on the bad side of town; how is that _any_ better than me meeting a guy on the internet?’ face.”

“Well, first of all, it’s not that simple,” Dean says.  “And second of all, shut up.”

That didn’t come out quite as convincingly as he intended.

But it _wasn’t_ that simple—everything else aside, it started before they even got on the bus.  Dean was slouching on the half-rotted bus stop bench, minding his own business and being kind of irritated about the fact that the dollar store across the street had stuff that cost _more than a dollar_ , what the fuck?  And then this guy about his age wearing a trenchcoat wandered up and sat down a hell of a lot closer than necessary when there was a whole bench there for sitting on, and this side was _obviously_ Dean’s.  Dude clearly did not know shit about the rules of public antisocializing.

Dean wanted to tell him to scoot his ass on down, but there was something kind of… different about him.  He had this look like he was just a little bit lost, and he was trying to concentrate on something in the middle distance that wouldn’t come into focus quite right.

So what came out to assuage the awkwardness was “My mama always said life was like a box of chocolates.”

The guy stared at him.

Well, shit, Dean would have stared at him, too.

“Okay, that’s not true,” Dean’s voice started to say.  Apparently his mouth had revoked his brain’s authority after the previous crapola.  “My mom died when I was really young, and there’s this hole in my chest where I hate her for it, because I try to believe that’s the reason I’m so fucking bad at caring about people.”

Whoa.  Just… what?

Because there’s fucked up, and there’s nine kinds of fucked up, and then there’s the kind of fucked up where you wordvomit the darkest part of yourself at a total stranger.

And then there’s the kind of fucked up where he tilts his head just a little and gently puts his hand on your arm and looks into your eyes without blinking and says “We’re all fighting something, you know.”

And then, as Dean tried to find enough breath to speak, the guy held his hand out at a slightly unhelpful angle and said, “My name is Castiel.”

So when the bus came (late), and Cas-too-long patted all of his pockets and looked very bewildered and a little sad, and Dean said, “Don’t you have a student ID?”, and Cas said, “Apparently not at the moment,” Dean just motioned for him to go up the stairs first and said, “I’ll spot you; come on.”

So they sat together, obviously, and Cas had this way of looking around himself like everything was small and harmless but faintly foreign, but when he focused on Dean, he’d get this _intensity_ that made Dean’s skin crawl a little and his heart race a lot.  And that was at least _eleven_ kinds of fucked up.

“Can I buy you a non-fat double-shot no-whip zebra mocha to repay you for the fare?” Cas asked right when Dean was considering starting to avoid his eyes.  “I believe that’s exactly how much I owe you.”

“I don’t drink that frothy girly shit,” Dean said.  “You can buy me a crap-ton of straight-up black coffee, though, I guess.  Let me…” Aw, crap, how did regular people do regular people shit like this? “…put my number in your phone… and… you can text me or something.”

“That is a very efficient idea,” Cas said.  He rummaged in the pockets of his coat, turned up a new iPhone, and stared at it for a long moment like it was some sort of alien garage-door-opener.

The sad thing was that there was probably an app for that.  Dean took the phone out of Cas’s hand without touching his fingers, went into the contacts, and added himself.  This was pushing twelve kinds of fucked up, but somehow it was getting progressively harder to care.

When he’d jumped off the bus and waved at a totally unresponsive, head-tilting Cas-too-long, he’d tried to think that maybe the whole thing was over and done with.  But he knew better, somehow.

And sure enough, at seven that night, he got a text that read: _Dean, I found my student identification card; it was in my other trenchcoat.  Also, who or what is your preferred purveyor of coffee?  I recently figured out how to use the Google Maps application and can meet you at any location._

And it turns out that some things are both completely insane and completely inevitable.

“Third of all,” Dean says to his definitely-bitchfacing brother, “Cas isn’t a psycho.”

“Al isn’t a psycho,” Sam says.

“Son of a bitch,” Dean says.  “You named him.  You’re gonna want to keep him.  _Damn_ it, Sammy.”

“ _I_ didn’t name him,” Sam says.  “And I already _met_ him, okay?  He’s not a psycho serial killer or a creepy fifty-year-old who gets off to online charades or _anything weird_ , okay?  Besides, even if he was, _Cas_ is weird.”

“Cas is not weird,” Dean says.  “Cas is totally fucking normal, and don’t bring him into this anyway.”

The door opens.  Cas has safety-pinned a portable speaker to the lapel of his trenchcoat, the better to blast Beyoncé from his iPhone.

“Look, Dean!” he cries, hips gyrating in a way that’s _seriously_ … distracting.  “I fully intend to let you complete your conversation, but a really nice boy with very soft hair taught me the dance from one of the greatest musical videos of all time!”

“Yeah,” Sam says slowly as Cas sashays his way around the living room, pointing to his unadorned ring finger at intervals.  “Totally… fucking… normal.”

“Shut up, Sam,” Dean says.

 

 

Ed was thinking that maybe it’s a bad idea.  Ed was thinking that maybe he should listen to all the people telling him to see sense, and thinking he should just cut it off and let it go.  Ed was thinking he doesn’t have time.  Ed was thinking he’s not really capable of fucking without fucking it up anyway.

And then Roy said three magical, beautiful, heart-breaking words:

“It’s a convertible.”

So everyone who thinks he’ll go to hell for this can just go scope out the real estate, as far as he’s concerned.

“I hate French fries,” Roy says through a mouthful of them.

Ed gives him a pointed look.

They’re sitting in the parking lot of In-N-Out, because plastic tables are for losers, and they’ve sort of tacitly agreed that they don’t want to run into anyone they know.

“Conceptually,” Roy says.  “That’s the thing.  I hate them because I love them too much, and I’m powerless in their thrall.  I resent my captivity.  I chafe against the shackles of delicious grease and the chains of salt and… Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because you’re a huge nerd,” Ed says.

Roy sorts through the remaining fries, selects one, and puts it in Ed’s mouth.

“And a sap,” Ed says around it.

“Have I ranted about soda yet?” Roy asks, hefting his cup.  “I can’t afford a gym membership.  This is self-sabotage.  I’m going to die young and fat and full of preservatives.”

“And _weird_ ,” Ed says.

Roy sighs and thumbs a little bit of ketchup off of Ed’s chin.  “I concede all three.”

“I’m trying to be scientific,” Ed says.  “I can’t figure out why I can’t get enough of you.”

“I’ve been told my charm is difficult to quantify.”

“Oh, you have _not_.”

“The exact words were something closer to ‘I have no idea how you got so strange’.  I took some creative liberties.”

Well, crap.  That’s the thing—Roy is just kind of dorky and kind of sweet and kind of unapologetically lame.  And the combination makes him kind of amazing.

“Go back through the drive-through,” Ed says.  “I want a milkshake.”

“You know those will bring unwanted gentlemen to your garden space.”

“Oh, my _God_ , shut up.”

“Yes, sir.  Right away, sir.  Would you like me to call Jeeves and ask if he’s polished the Rolls Royce, sir?”

“I’m going to get a second milkshake to throw in your _face_.”

“That’s fine with me,” Roy says, wiping his fingers, buckling his seatbelt, and turning the keys in the ignition, “as long as you lick it off afterward.”

This dorky-sexy thing is really problematic; Ed’s having to shift his entire worldview to accommodate the concept, let alone the reality.  But… the kind of movies Al likes sort of seem to think that’s the point, don’t they?  The point is finding somebody who rocks every last dimension of your whole fucking universe.

And when Roy pays for Ed’s milkshake even though Ed knows for a fact that he can’t afford any cuisine finer than the esteemed Maruchan label, and then when Roy curls a finger in Ed’s ponytail and tugs and says “Let your hair down” right as they get onto the highway, Ed finds that he’s lost the ability to say _no_ to this.

 

 

Gabe seems to have managed to get the key jammed in the lock of Storage Closet CH4.  He would like to apply some C4 to this problem.  “All-access” his breathtakingly attractive _ass_.

He jimmies the key a little.  Come _on_.  Okay, six frat boys are going to have extremely embarrassing beer pong accidents this weekend.  Except what if the hot nurse at the health center asks for their numbers anyway?  They’re going to have _incapacitating_ beer pong accidents.

“Open sesame,” he mutters at the door.  “The power of Christ compels you.  The power of _me_ and _dangerous explosives_ compels you, you Satanic little _fucker_ —”

He glances both ways down the hall.  There are three students just turning into the corridor, one of whom thinks he’s an aviator; one of whom thinks he’s a goth; and one of whom thinks that if he works hard and believes in himself, he can grow up to be a cream puff someday.

“Well, it’s _bullshit_ ,” Goth says with very young-Simba-esque ferocity.  “I didn’t go into the field so that I could memorize different fucking kinds of fingerprints.”

“Let me guess,” Aspiring Cream Puff says so dryly that Gabe half-expects him to cough up sand.  “You were expecting a practical final exam that involved selecting, pursuing, and prosecuting a current criminal.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Goth says.

They’re passing Gabe now; he pretends to be very busy unwrapping the Snickers bar that kid gave him yesterday.

“I’m not entirely pleased with it, myself,” Cream Puff says.  Gabe half-expects him to sprout a top hat and a monocle.  “I was hoping for more… creative… intellectual challenges.”

“I cut the sudoku out of three newspapers for you every morning,” Aviator says wistfully.

“And I appreciate that,” Cream Puff says, “but even the riveting pursuit of systematic numeral rearrangement leaves something to be desired.”

“A fuck-ton to be desired,” Goth says.

“All I desire is a PS3,” Aviator says, “and you guys.”

“You’re adorable,” Goth says scathingly.

“He is, though,” Cream Puff says.

“That’s why I _said_ it,” Goth says.

They turn the corner at the other end, and their voices fade.

Gabe gives it another second, and then he prods the stubborn lock with his index finger.  It turns into a non-poisonous tree frog, jumps down, and hops away looking extremely confused.  His key-ring clatters musically to the linoleum; he picks it up, dusts it off, and selects the responsible key to glare at it.

“Power of me,” he says.  “Capiche?”

Rarely has he seen an inanimate object look so afraid.

 

 

Al drops all of his notes when he stops suddenly to avoid crashing into the inseparable Robotics Lab quartet, so even though Skinny Nervous Boy (a.k.a. “ _Idiot_ ” if you take Obnoxious Orange-Haired Girl’s word for it) and Friendly White-Haired Boy and Quiet Girl help him pick everything up, he’s a little late getting to Sam’s place.

Sam doesn’t seem to mind, at least judging by the huge grin.  “Hey!  How are you?”

“A bit frazzled, to tell the truth,” Al says.  “We had sixty compound names to memorize for chemistry… Well, in any case—how are you?  Sleeping better?”

“Uh,” Sam says.

“I see,” Al says.  “Did you want me to take a look at your room?”

Sam’s bedroom looks extremely ordinary—which is most likely the root of the problem; he’s still waiting for his insomnia to disappear in a puff of smoke instead of learning how to cope—and bears the hallmarks of a private place hurriedly cleaned up for a guest.  Al wonders what would fall out if he opened the closet.

…well, Sam’s brother, by the sound of it.

Al brought black construction paper and scissors and tape, and he makes a little half-box to set on the front of Sam’s alarm clock, which will cover up the glow of the numbers without obscuring the sound.

“You need to get curtains,” he says.  “They’re really bad for allergies, but venetian blinds just won’t cut it.”

“Especially janky ones that’ve been trashed by a million previous generations of college students?” Sam asks.

“Especially those,” Al says.

They close the janky blinds and turn on the light in the hall, and Al gets down on his hands and knees to examine the line-under-the-door conditions, which… puts him into an interesting position.  Sam swallows audibly, but Al can’t think of anything to say more tactful than “No, please _do_ admire my success in the genetic lottery.”  He gets up again, toes his shoes off, and sits down cross-legged on the bed to make a little tiny construction paper box that will cover the power light on Sam’s computer cord.

He counts it a miracle that he actually finishes before Sam finally pushes him down on the mattress and kisses him hard enough to bruise.

On the downside, he’s going to have a lot of trouble settling down and sleeping tonight, and he has class at eight tomorrow.

Well, life is short.  Like Brother.

 

 

“I have indeed made progress on my dissertation,” Castiel says, “but first would you like me to teach you a few hip and modern dances?”

The nice adviser knits his hands together, rocks forward in his chair, and smiles vibrantly.  “What kind of dances?”

The adviser who hates everything (or at least feigns disillusionment on a regular basis) pushes his dark glasses up his nose, folds his arms across the front of his leather jacket, and leans back.  “Wake me up when it’s over.  This department is _not_ what it used to be.”

“It used to be an administrative building,” the nice adviser says; “and before that it was a hill, and before that it was just a rock, and before _that_ —”

“I remember,” the disillusioned adviser says.  “It was a hideously ugly rock.”

“It had character,” the nice adviser says.

“Its character was ugliness.”

“Well, _I_ liked it.”

“I was recently informed,” Castiel says, “that if you liked it, you should have put a ring on it.”

 

 

Despite some pretty extensive research, Bobby Singer can’t figure out exactly when or why everybody in the whole damn world went batshit.

“Dean is currently unconscious on his bed and snoring quietly,” a male voice is whispering into the phone.  “You are listed as his emergency contact.  And as his next of kin.  And as ‘the Bobster’ for some reason I have not been able to determine, which I suspect might involve the abuse of alcohol.  Would you be willing to do me a small favor?”

“Depends,” Bobby says slowly.  “Who in the _hell_ are you, and what in the _hell_ kind of favor are we talkin’?”

“I am Castiel,” the voice says.  “Dean has privately conceded that I am his—” There’s a bit of static and a short pause; Bobby has a disturbing premonition that this guy just cradled the phone against his shoulder to free both hands for air quotes.  “—‘boyfriend’, but he does not seem to be entirely comfortable broadcasting that assessment.  In any case, I was hoping to do something nice for him in order to apologize for getting the delightful Beyoncé song ‘Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)’ stuck in his head, which seemed to cause him a great deal of distress.  Do you happen to know his favorite kind of pie?”

“The kind in front of him,” Bobby says.

“…but there are not any pastries currently near his person.”

“Castiel, was it?”

“Yes, Mr. Singer.”

“He won’t give a rat’s ass what kind of pie it is.  Just pick the one you’re best at baking, and serve it with a beer.”

“Ah.  I have never baked anything before, but I imagine it cannot be too difficult, so I will select a recipe that looks appealing.”

Bobby really hopes the boys changed the battery in their smoke alarm recently.

“Thank you very much for your assistance, Mr. Singer.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Bobby says.  “Save the crap for the idjit you just saddled yourself with.”

“…was that supposed to sound sexua—”

“ _Gads_ ,” Bobby says, hanging up.

At least they’ll suit each other.

 

 

Al tries to hurry home after his first class in the hopes of arriving before Brother and at least having time to change out of yesterday’s wrinkled, slept-in clothes.  He predicts, though, a strong likelihood Ed has literally run to their apartment, climbed the wall, and crept in through the window in order to beat him back.

When he skips up the stairs, unlocks the door, and pulls it open, Ed’s already sitting on the couch.  His legs are crossed, and his hands are folded on his knee, and he’s panting lightly and trying to look like he’s been sitting there calmly all night.  The window’s open behind him.  _Darn_.

“You know what’s crazy?” Brother asks.  “Milkshakes don’t actually taste like milk.  It’s awesome.  You know what _else_ is crazy?  When your _baby brother_ does the _Walk of Shame_.”

“It wasn’t really,” Al says, shutting the door and then wishing he’d left it open in case he needs to escape.  “Yes, I stayed over—but we didn’t _do_ anything.  We just… cuddled.”

“You _cuddled_ ,” Ed says.

“Yes.”

“All night long.”

“Well… yes.”

“Like _hell_ , Al.”

“He’s got insomnia, too,” Al says.  “That’s why we started talking in the first place, and that’s why I went home with him yesterday.  He’s _nice_ , Brother, and he’s smart, and he has a ‘Fellowship of the Ring’ movie poster signed by Peter Jackson on his wall.”

Ed softens dramatically and then musters a frown.  “Not ‘Two Towers’?”

Al folds his arms across his chest and stares his brother down.

“ _Fine_ ,” Ed says, “but we’re going to have a long talk about safe sex before y—”

“I’m the one who taught _you_ about safe sex,” Al says.  “And not a moment too soon, as I recall.”

“Whatever,” Ed says.  “It’s not my fault that I’m precocious.”

“I think the word you wanted was ‘promiscuous’,” Al says.

“I think the word you wanted was ‘Don’t make me kick your skinny little ass, Al’.”

“I think the word you wanted was ‘Try it and see what happens’.”

“I think…” Ed’s scowl wobbles, breaks, and gives way to a helpless grin.  “…I’m fucking starving.  Did your cuddle-buddy feed you breakfast?”

“There wasn’t time,” Al says.  “I’ll put coffee on.  You know, there’s this place down the street that you’d like; they do this thing called ‘Santa Fe style’.”

Ed sprawls on the couch.  “Oh, you mean Café Olé?  Roy dared me to get a mocha done up that way.  It was all right.  If they _really_ wanted to fuck with you, they’d do drinks full of cinnamon—you know if you eat a whole teaspoon of cinnamon, you’ll just, like, die?”

Al measures out the water and then the grounds.  “Are you and Roy… kind of… serious?”

“Ha.  No.  We act stupid like you wouldn’t even believe.”

“I don’t mean temperamentally,” Al says.  “I mean—is the _relationship_ serious?  Because you’ve never… done that… before.”

Ed goes quiet.  Al glances over, but he’s staring at the ceiling, forehead half-furrowed.

“I dunno,” he says after a while.  “Obviously I have to put up with him until my chem grade gets finalized.  And then—I guess—if he hasn’t started to annoy me by then, and he hasn’t gotten clingy, and he doesn’t cheat, and he… stays all… nerdy and… cute… and… stuff… then… maybe I’ll keep him around.”

“Ah,” Al says lightly.  “Okay.  Just wondering.”

“The car is pretty fun.”

“I’m sure.”

“And he has good taste in coffee.  And in men.”

“Well, clearly.”

 

 

Hughes’s second-in-command pushes one of the logo mugs and a paper cup full of… something… across the counter to Roy.  “The boss said, and I quote, ‘With his complimentary-for-putting-up-with-my-shit coffee, please furnish him with a mirror.’”

Roy looks into the cup.  “This is whipped cream.”

The young man adjusts his waistcoat around his apron.  “It is.”

“Tell Hughes that I am _not_ whipped,” Roy says.

“The boss said you’d say that.  And he said to tell you ‘Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, oh, Roy, you should’ve majored in Egyptology, because you are knee-deep in _de Nile_.’”

“ _Bastard_.”

“I’ll pass it along.”

“Thank you.”

“On the other hand, we have your favorite Guatemalan roast today.”

“Oh,” Roy says.  “That _is_ nice.”

“I try.”

 

 

Dean’s working in the shop—doing paperwork, which is the crappy, not-oily, not-mechanical, not-awesome but still-necessary part—when Girly (he’s too embarrassed to admit to her that he’s long since forgotten her real name) knocks on the office doorway.

“Hey, Mystery House?” she says.

“What the fuck is wrong with my handwriting?” he asks, rhetorically.  “And what do you need?” he asks, less so.

“There’s somebody here to see you,” she says.  “He said I wasn’t supposed to tell you his name, so he might be a creeper?  But he’s kind of…”

Dean blinks at her and pauses.  “Shiny?”

“ _Real_ shiny,” she says.

Dean decides that translating his own personal version of cuneiform can wait a couple minutes—or a couple centuries until some smart-ass archaeologists get their mitts on it—and gets up to follow her.

It’s Cas.  Of course it’s Cas.

Cas is holding a big foil-covered disc in both hands.

“Dean!” he says delightedly.  “I made you a chicken pot pie!  And I cut off the burnt parts, and I piped the first hundred numbers of the _numeral_ pi in icing on the top!”

“Wow!” Girly says.  “Can I have a bite, Mystery House?”

“Sure,” Dean says.  “Cas, are you high?”

“…I don’t believe I’ve grown any taller since our last encou—”

“Never mind.”

 

 

Sam should be reading.

But he’s not.

He’s drafting an email to Al.

Crap.

_Dear Al_

Oh, God, nobody starts emails like that, ever, period, _ever_.  He presses his finger down on DELETE and grimaces until the words are gone.

_Hey, Al,_

…that’ll just have to do.

_Just wanted to say hi_

Duh.  Crap.

_Just wanted to shoot you a note_

No.  Crap.

_Just wanted to thank you for all your help the other day and say I had a really nice time hanging out with you._

Crap.  That makes it sound like they sat in the kitchen eating cookies and making friendship bracelets or some shit.

_and say I had a really nice time with you._

That kind of works.  Doesn’t it?  Crap.

_And… I slept really well last night!_

Aw, Jesus, this is getting worse and worse.  He highlights that sentence and jabs the delete key to obliterate it.

_Hope your class went well, and that I didn’t make you late.  Let me know if you want to grab coffee again sometime—and yes, with your bare hands._

Cheesy.  Fuck.  Whatever, he’s just going to go with it.

_I was also thinking we should definitely figure out when tickets go on sale so that we can get to a midnight showing of ‘The Hobbit’ on opening night, if you’d be interested in that._

Sam may cry—in a really, y’know, manly kind of way—if he has to go alone.  Maybe he’ll invite Cas.  Except that Cas would ask who everybody was every two seconds, and they’d get chased out of the theater with replica Stings.

_Talk to you later! :)_

Fuck, that is _so_ twelve-year-old girl with a big fat crush.  But without the emoticon, it’s sort of… demanding?  And with a winking face or something, it’d just be fucking creepy.  Yeah, _talk_ to you _later_ , Al, eh, eh, eh?

Goddamnitalltohell.

He types _Sam_ and hits send before he can chicken out.

He should really just become a hermit and live out of their car and only ever see his professors and Dean; he’s so _crap_ at this.

And Al’s really not likely to respond within two seconds flat, so he should stop refreshing his email.

He will stop refreshing it.  As soon as it’s done loading.  And then after one more try.

 

 

_Hi, Sam!_

Al stares at the screen.  He chews on his lip.  He crosses his legs at the ankle and swings them back and forth.  That’s not… quite enough, somehow.

_Hi, Sam! ^______^_

Bingo.

_I don’t want to hedge about this, even though it’s a bit – I’m not sure what word to use – sensitive?  Then again, it’s not as though it’s any less personal than all of the things I told you before, about the fire, and my mother, and the nightmares, and how irrationally scared I am sometimes that I’m not as_ much _as my brother.  And there are transcripts of that auto-saved all over my hard drive, so it’s silly to shy away from this._

_Here I am rationalizing!  Bit hypocritical of me. x)_

_I’ll just cut to the chase before I try to hide behind any more words:_

_1\. I had a wonderful time with you, both helping you to light-proof your bedroom and curling up with you last night._

_2\. I would like to grab_ you _with my bare hands.  Oh, goodness, that looks a bit saucy typed out like that.  Ah… hmm._

_3\. Coffee would also be lovely._

_4\. I would DIE to go to a midnight premier with you!!!!  Do you have a theater in mind?  They must have pre-sales.  Can we dress up?  I’d try to get Brother to go as a hobbit but he would_ actually _kill me in my sleep.  And I refuse to die before seeing this movie; I have waited TOO LONG._

_5\. I hope I’m not freaking you out?  Well, while I’m at it, you’re really cute when you sleep._

_6\. Hey, that means we did a good job, doesn’t it?  You got to sleep pretty quickly._

_Talk to you soon, I hope! ^______^_

_Al_

…huh.  Well, life is short.

Al hits ‘send’, sits back, immediately thinks of a hundred ways he could have phrased every sentence better, sighs inwardly, and lets go of the regret.  There’s no point doing anything if you’re not willing to make mistakes.

Especially mistakes that might end up getting you ‘Hobbit’ tickets.  And maybe a boyfriend.

 

 

Well, this was an agonizingly long and marginally interesting week.  Gabe selects a promising corridor, looks both ways, turns a drinking fountain into a throne-like chair, and settles in it, holding his mop like a scepter.  The two professors striding past—one in a black suit and one in a brown one—are arguing too animatedly to notice.

“If we just reverse the polarity of the neutron fl—”

“That is utter _shit_ , and you’ve known it for several hundred y—”

“Keep your voice down!”

“All you have to do is give me the screwdriver for fifteen seconds, and we’d be well done with this stupid charade—”

“What part of ‘voice _down_ ’ have you not got?”

“Oh, I’m _sorry_ ,” the man in the black suit says in a much lower register.  “Let me drive, you damn _fool_.  How’s that?”

They slingshot around the corner, and the bickering fades out slowly.  Gabe leans down, presses the button, and drinks from the armrest of his throne.

Momentarily his blond stalker/friend saunters down the hallway, whistling.  He blinks when he sees Gabe, and then he smiles.  The drinking-fountain-chair does not seem to be an issue.

“It’s nice to see you, Gabe!” he says.  “I actually had a question for you, if it’s not any trouble.  I was going to luckily guess that one of the other janitors—the brown-haired one with the weird friends—turns thirty tomorrow.  Do you know what he might like to get?”

“A steak,” Gabe says.  “Preferably so raw it’s still on the cow.  You’re going to make the entire staff fall in love with you if you keep this up, pal.  Or was that your plan all along?”

“It just seemed like a nice thing to do,” Al-smarty-pants says cheerfully, drawing out his iPhone and tapping deftly with both thumbs.  “Besides, I think I have a boyfriend now.  I’m going to meet his brother this afternoon.”

“Batting for that team, huh?” Gabe asks.  “Good for you.  Careful, though—guys are thick.  Bring him red roses.  And write ‘sex please’ in Sharpie on every one.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Al says.  “I was thinking of leaving pictures of myself that say ‘wishful thinking’ in his bed.”

“You’re good,” Gabe says.

“Not really,” Al says.  “Just starting to get impatient.”

“Let me show you something,” Gabe says.

“If you reach for the fly of your pants, I’m leaving.”

“You’re sick.”

“I prefer ‘jaded’.”

“Jade this,” Gabe says, and he vanishes.

The only thing that sucks about that trick is that he never gets to see the reaction.

 

 

Dean just… it’s hard, okay?  It’s hard to go out in public with a guy and act all… boyfriendy.  Even if the guy is Cas.  Even if it feels sort of—good.  Sort of warm all over.  Sort of bubbly in his stomach—bubbly like _happy butterflies on LSD_ , not like _drank too much bourbon and oh fuck why are there three toilet bowls_.

“Dean,” Cas says, and if that isn’t the most beautiful syllable in the world, that’s only because _gun_ and _car_ exist.  “Is that more sugars than you usually add to your coffee?  I want to know how you take it.”

“That’s what _she_ said,” Sam says loudly.

“…who?”

“No one,” Dean says.  “My brother is just a bitch.”

“And mine’s a _jerk_.”

“One sugar,” Dean says.

Cas’s eyes are huge—like, _huge_.  And they’re blue like spilled paint, like the meeting of sea and sky, like _rhythm and_.  They’re practically unreal.  “But you just poured in a second packet.”

Well, crap.  Dean glares at Sam, who is obviously responsible for this travesty of coffee modification.  “That’s because I’m fucking distracted looking for my brother’s creepy internet stalker-slash-boytoy.”

On the upside, that has got to be the _best_ bitchface Sam has done all year.  It needs its own Facebook page so that Dean can make five new accounts to _like_ it with.

“Cas… teal?” the barista guy in the vest calls.  “Your extraordinarily complicated coffee-based concoction is finished.”

Cas zips over like he’s been fired from a Remington 870.  “You mean my non-fat triple-shot zebra mocha with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles?”

Sam drags a hand down over his face.  “Remind me, Dean— _why_ are we letting him have caffeine?”

“He’s a big boy,” Dean says.  “He can have caffeine if he damn well wants.”

“If he’s up in the middle of the night singing Nicki Minaj, I’m going to kill you both.”

Cas sips carefully as he shuffles back over to their table.  He sits down.  He shifts back and forth in the chair a bit.  He sets the cup down.  He beams.

Dean clears his throat.  “You have a…”

Cas blinks.

Dean motions to his own face.

Cas blinks again.

Dean motions a bit more furiously.

Slowly, Cas tilts his head to the right.  “What do I have, Dean?”

_A boyfriend,_ Dean thinks—hard.  _You have a boyfriend.  A boyfriend named Dean fucking Winchester who is man enough to do this, or God help me I hope so—_

He grabs Cas’s collar and drags him in and kisses the smear of milk foam and whipped cream off of his upper lip.

Okay.  Okay, made your point, good job, Dean, now _stop_ —for the love of _Christ_ , let go of Cas this instant, you dumb son of a _bitch_ —

“Al!” Sam says, and Dean hasn’t heard that tone of absolute delight since the kid was sixteen and Dean got him that original Smith & Wesson Model 10 for his birthday.

Dean manages to pry his mouth off of Cas’s.  His hand is still clenched in Cas’s shirt—white-knuckled, turns out.  He focuses on Cas’s seriously-way-too-blue eyes.  Cas blinks.  And that’s enough to make the lightning sizzling in Dean’s gut fritz out a bit.

He looks up towards the door.  There’s a boy walking towards them—short, bright blond hair; kind of thin but graceful with a hint of real power.  He’s wearing a white button-up shirt and a green V-neck sweater and khakis and green Converse.  He looks like a total nerd and like exactly the kind of person Sammy could worship forever.

“Al, are you okay?” Sam asks, and holy _bejesus_ , he looks like a puppy right now.

“Oh,” Al the Harmless-Looking Internet Stalker says faintly.  “Sorry, I… strange day.  In any case, it’s good to see you!  How have you been?”

Sam stood up, so he’s towering over Now-Even-More-Harmless-Looking Internet Stalker.  He’s shoved his hands into his pockets, and he’s grinning fit to break his face.  “About the same since we talked yesterday.  Hey, you want anything?  I can pay.”

“Are you sure?” Al asks, looking up at Sam through his eyelashes—the little _whore_.  “That’s really sweet of you.”

“It’s totally not,” Sam says.  “Dean’s going to be a dick.”

Al sets his weird honey-olive-sunbeam eyes on Dean and Cas, and then he moves over to them smoothly, extending his hand.  Dean grits his teeth and shakes—kid’s got a good, solid grip, if nothing else.  Cas searches Al’s face for a moment while he follows suit, and then he… smiles.  Broadly, unconditionally.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Al,” Cas says.  “You have an extremely positive presence.”

“Thank you,” Al says, and there’s a touch of pink in his cheeks as he smiles back.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.  Sam just _had_ to find the goddamn _cutest_ evil little internet stalker whore in the entire universe—

“Dean,” Al says, peering up at him, and wait a second, maybe he _always_ looks at people through his eyelashes, “am I remembering correctly that you love pie?  I’ve been trying a few recipes lately, but my brother’s not very… discerning, and I’d love to have your input.  Maybe I could bring one by your place sometime, and you could let me know what you think.”

Dean really tries to say _I will eat your pie, and I will go see your stupid movie, but if you hurt my brother, I will end you_.  What comes out is “Yeah.  Sure.  Cool.”

Al’s grin is like sunshine blasting through the clouds, and it’s so intense that Dean actually reels back from it.  By the time he’s recovered, Al has skipped over to the register—with Sam standing just an _inch_ too close by his elbow—and Cas is humming something that had better not fucking be Taylor Swift.

“I like him,” Cas says.  “He has an almost unprecedentedly beautiful soul.”

“And he’s evil,” Dean says.

“I… have seen no evidence that he is unsavory in any way, Dean.”

“ _Evil_ ,” Dean says.

Cas frowns thoughtfully.  “Are you, perhaps, projecting your jealousy that another person is drawing Sam’s attention?”

“No,” Dean says.  “He’s Satan.”

“I assure you he is not that.”

“God damn it, Cas; whose side are you _on_?”

Cas blinks, shrugs, and takes another sip of his coffee.

Dean’s whole body participates in a really, really weird twitch.  “You’ve got…” he says, and gestures.

 

 

Gravity must be stronger around Roy.  Implausible or no, it’s the only scientifically sound explanation.  Ed’s fallen into half a dozen people’s beds, and he’s even fallen into people’s hearts, sometimes, and floundered around in the gooey warmth for a while before dragging himself out onto dry land again.  But he’s never fallen this fast, and unfortunately it’s not like _his_ mass has increased, so… it must just be Roy.  Roy twists all of the heretofore-unshakable universal laws just a _fraction_ , but a fraction is enough to alter the formulae, and the difference has sent Ed crashing through barrier after barrier until he fell into Roy’s _life_.

That’s never happened to him before.  And it’s strange.  It’s strange slowly learning the cuts and flaws and divots on the passenger seat of Roy’s car with his fingertips; it’s strange accidentally getting familiar with Roy’s wardrobe, on the man and on the floor; it’s strange hearing all of the drunk-kids-in-the-library stories and trying to figure out just how lonely Roy’s been before now.  It’s strange knowing how he takes his coffee, what his favorite roasts are, how his eyelashes seem heavier and his voice sounds lower before he’s taken the first sip.  It’s strange finding out he has a sister who texts things like _Hope you’re well.  They gave me my M24 today.  You don’t even want to know what I can do with this thing.  Study hard or I’ll send pictures_.  It’s strange to spend so much more time talking than fucking, although they certainly do a fair bit of that.  It’s strange indexing all of the scars and all of their stories; it’s strange taking advantage of all of the ticklish spots.

But the really strange thing is that Ed fucking _loves_ it.  He can’t help himself.  It feels like his heart’s exploded into stardust that’s zinging through his veins; it feels like he’s something new and bright and wondrous, because Roy looks at him like he is and always will be.  It feels so _good_.

As they head uphill towards the coffee shop, Ed hooks a finger into one of Roy’s belt loops.  Roy smiles, just a little, still looking at the sidewalk.  He reaches over and tugs gently on Ed’s ponytail.

“I’m afraid I’d better drop you off at your place after this,” Roy says.  “The pile of homework to grade has grown large enough that I fear for capital cities the world over.  And now I have your chicken scratches to decipher as well.”

“I still don’t get why you have to play policeman,” Ed says.  “You shouldn’t have to work your ass off trying to _force_ people to appreciate all the stuff they get to learn.”

Roy has about a thousand different smiles.  This is the one reserved for when Ed picks up stupid societal systems, shakes them, decides they’re useless, and tosses them over his shoulder.  Ed is aware that he kind of does that a lot, but it’s not _his_ fault—there’s just a lot of shit that’s stupid.

“If everyone was lit from within like you are,” Roy says, “my work would be rather easier.  And I might have a magnificent harem of different Edwards.”

“ _Perv_ ,” Ed says, feelingly.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Roy says, glancing at him and looking a bit weak.  “I shouldn’t have _thought_ that.  Oh… hell.  Well.  Now I’m even more in need of a coffee fix.”

“You’re going to put Hughes out of business,” Ed says as they get close.

“Nonsense,” Roy says.  “All kinds of people spot me on the street and follow me in because I’m so dashingly attractive, and then they stay for the drinks.”

“This world in your head sounds like an interesting place,” Ed says.

“It is,” Roy says.  “You’re there all the time now, and you’re almost invariably naked.  Shit, I shouldn’t have thought about that, either.”

“You are _messed_ up,” Ed says, grabbing his hand and hauling him into the shop.  “Go on and get your damn coffee, and maybe you’ll be able to get your weird brain under control.”

As Roy trots off to go wrangle some free java out of the barista, Ed looks around the shop.  Right by the window, there’s a sharp-featured brown-haired kid scribbling in a black notebook.  Ed wanders a couple steps closer and realizes that he’s sketching the guy across from him, who’s perched on one of the armchairs with his knees drawn up and his thumb halfway into his mouth.

Then Ed sees somebody else— _Al_ , with _three guys_.

Three.  _Three_.

Logically, given Al, the odds are actually that he’s just trying to recruit a bunch of nerds to dress up and go to ‘The Hobbit’ with him, but after Roy’s harem comment—

Ed storms over and pulls up a chair.

“Um,” the tallest one, who has long brown hair and big woobly brown eyes, says slowly, “hi.”  Then his woobly eyes wooble even more, and his mouth drops open.  “Oh, my God.  You’re Brother.  I mean, Ed.  You’re—”

Al puts a hand on his knee, and he just—settles.  Just like that.

“Fancy meeting you here, Brother,” Al says.  “This is Ed.  Ed, this is Sam, and Sam’s brother Dean, and Dean’s denial-boyfriend Castiel.”

“Yo,” Ed says.  That sounds all right.  People who hang out with their brothers tend to be all right.  “So you’re studying law or something?”

“Yeah,” Sam says, visibly trying to relax.  Ed watches Al’s fingers arch and sweep over Sam’s knee; the guy shivers.  “Uh—biochem, right?”

“He’s minoring in wreaking merry hell,” Roy says, firm arm reaching over Ed’s shoulder to set two mugs of coffee on the table.  Another chair scrapes across the floorboards.  “I didn’t realize you were planning to invite yourself to a party.”

“Is this a party?” Cas-thing asks, looking very, very hopeful.  “That would be the _perfect_ time to share something I learned.  Dean, you were complaining that all of the songs I was enjoying were too old, correct?”

Dean does not look hopeful.  “I gue—”

“I learned a new song!” Cas says.  “It’s in _Korean_!”

A hand slaps Roy’s back pretty hard, and Ed turns and finds Hughes’s smuggest grin.  “Hey, RoydyWip!  Brought you a present!”  He holds a riding crop out to Ed, face going utterly solemn.  “Use it wisely.  With great kink comes great responsibil—”

Cas has gotten up from the table and started singing that ‘Oppa Gangnam Style’ song that Al played for six hours straight after Ed used up the last of the toilet paper.

“Hey!” Hughes says.  “That’s my _favorite_ song!”

As the ecstatic dancing commences, Roy leans his shoulder against Ed’s gently and sighs.  “I was going to say ‘Next time let’s hang out with my friends’, but… let’s not.  Instead, let’s run away to Mexico and change our names.”

“Take us with you,” Sam says.

“Sam,” Al says very seriously, “we can’t leave the country until we’ve seen ‘The Hobbit’.”

“Somebody please stab me to death with a fucking stirrer stick,” Dean says.

Ed attempts to focus through the ambient chaos, looking at the leather… thing… that was forced into his hand.  “Okay, I don’t get it.”

“It’s an extremely clever wordplay,” Roy says in a tone better-suited to the sentence _It’s the reason I’m going to tear his throat out with my teeth_.  “He thinks I’m a whipped Mustang.”

“Oh,” Ed says.  “ _Oh_.”  He tries to keep the stupid blushing to a minimum as he turns the thing over.  “Well, we can probably find some use for it.  Like threatening students or something.”

Roy clears his throat, then does it again.  “Or something.”

Several people have left the shop looking traumatized, and waistcoat-barista appears to be succumbing to the throes of undiluted despair, but Hughes doesn’t seem to give a crap about losing business while he’s horse-ride-pantomime-dancing with Dean’s denial-boyfriend.

Cas points at Dean, flushed and bright-eyed and terrifyingly hyperactive.  “ _Hey_ ,” he sings off-key, “sexy _la_ dy—”

Dean goes the color of tomato bisque, covers his face with both hands, and puts his head down on the table.

“What do you know,” Sam says from Ed’s other side.  “I think this is _my_ favorite song, too.”


End file.
